From the Marshall Islands Journal Friday, February 15, 2008
Auditor versus agencies
By GIFF JOHNSON
The latest Auditor General’s report to Nitijela lists Rongelap, AMI and KAJUR among “unauditable” agencies. But officials with these three say not only are they auditable, Deloitte and Touche auditors are currently auditing them or have completed audits.
“We continue to find organizations that are unable to maintain their accounting systems in an auditable condition, and as a result audits for the following organizations for the fiscal years 1997 through 2007 were postponed,” the January 2008 Auditor General’s report to Nitijela said, listing 10 entities including the three noted above.
“The audit for FY2005 and FY2006 for KAJUR are almost completed,” said former Secretary of Finance Saeko Shoniber, who is now the fiscal officer for the Marshalls Energy Company.
“The audit for FY2007 is still on planning stage by Deloitte and Touche,” Shoniber told the Journal. “I have not seen any schedule yet, but KAJUR books are ready for audit.”
AMI general manager Dan Fitzpatrick told the Journal that the FY2005 and FY2006 draft audits are done. “AMI is indeed auditable!” he said.
“The FY2005 draft report was issued August 6, 2007,” he said. “The FY2006 draft audit was issued October 23, 2007.”
“The preliminary audit for FY2007 is already complete” with Deloitte personnel scheduled to complete their audit work shortly, he said.
“We should not be in the report (of unauditable agencies),” Rongelap Atoll Local Government city manager Antonio Reyes told the Journal. “Deloitte and Touche is working on FY2007 now,” he said. Audits for 2004 through 2006 are done, and RALGov is waiting for the final reports to be issued by the Guam-based auditing agency that works together with the RMI Auditor General’s office.
But the Auditor General’s report says that audits were postponed for AMI and KAJUR for FY2005-2007, and for RALGov for FY2004-2007 because they didn’t maintain their accounting systems in auditable condition.
Acting Auditor General Atmita Jonathan told the Journal Monday that the listing of agencies in the unauditable list reflects the fact that “we have not received the audit reports.”
All of the audits that were received prior to issuance of the January 2008 were included in the report to Nitijela, she said.
She said that for both KAJUR and RALGov, Deloitte officials had advised her that audit “field work” was still in progress. Jonathan said that although audit work was happening, the final reports had not been provided, which accounted for these entities being in the unauditable listing.
RALGov’s Reyes said Deloitte auditors have told RALGov that the local government “is auditable.”
Both sides delay on KAJUR books
Last year, Kwajalein Atoll Local Government officials complained about being listed by the Auditor General as unauditable, telling the Journal that it was the Auditor General — not KALGov — responsible for delaying the audits.
But this week, Acting Auditor General Atmita Jonathan told the Journal that KALGov postponed a planned audit scheduled for the summer of 2007, asking that it be delayed until after November 2007.
In late 2006, Jonathan had informed KALGov that she was short of staff and needed to postpone earlier audits. But last year, the audit work was contracted to Deloitte and Touche, she said.
She said that auditors from Deloitte and Touche were ready to conduct the audit of KALGov — which has not been audited for the past five fiscal years — last summer, but KALGov requested it be delayed.
“They asked us to delay it until after November and we haven’t heard back since then,” she said. “We told them to let us know (suitable dates) so we can reschedule it.”